Premier Rock Forum

danielruder wrote:

belmont wrote:So which of you two guys just purchased the Otari 2" at Clayton Studios for $500 before my envious eyes?

Me. How did you know that it would someone related to this forum? Was it the fact that I was wearing pants that fit?

Come on... If you are starting an analag studio and picking up that machine you know about Electrical Audio. Congrats! OH. had nothing to do with your jeans.

i've got an otari MTR 90 mk III and studer a810 at my place.

the studer has been acting a little squirrely recently, i've got my eye on it... but the otari's been great.

and one of those microcassette recorders for recording lectures.

Studer A-80 Mk-iV 2" with 16tk and 24tk heads, 2- Otari MX-5050 MkiV 1/4" 2 track. One as backup. No computers (yet). My console is being rebuilt so, unfortunately, they're idle now.

I forgot to say why I chose these. I've been infatuated with the A-80 since i was a young-un, and this one was mad cheap. I love the sound and I'm not as intimidated by the electronics compared to later models. Solidifying my decision was the wealth of knowledge and parts available. I got into it and learned a ton as I attacked oddball behavior (cheap, remember?). A bit of aggro, but worth it in the long run as I'm now much more confident with it.
The Otari was recommended to me as a reliable (but not drop-dead great sounding) machine and also MAD cheap. I liked that they were recent, plentiful and cheap. I scored a minty one (2hrs on the heads) from ebay for ... wait for it... $52 (with remote). The shipping cost more than that. I scored a second (for parts) for slightly less. Let's hear it for the ebaying the last week of the month!
Before the Otari deck I used Teac pro-sumer decks for mixdowns and enjoyed them. Before the Studer I was rocking a Tascam 8-track cassette machine (midistudio?). I used it for my old band's two records (and PAYING gigs) and I still use it for demos. It's a great little scratchpad and yields surprisingly good results if you put decent mic pres before it. I like the cheap media and being limited to 8 tracks for demo's. It's plenty. I may grab another!

I've got a tascam 38. 1/2'' 8-track. I'm really new to recording to tape, so I can't offer much insight- but so far, I've been really happy with it. Everyone that I've talked to that has experience with it says that it's a great machine to start on and is more than capable of solid/quality recordings.

Studer A827 24-track, which replaced an Otari MTR-90 II. Mixdown to Studer A80RC 1/2" 2-track and Otari MTR-10 1/4" 2-track.

After Otaris 10 years of various Otari's and MCI's, using the Studer is like being on vacation.

At work we have an Otari MTR-90 MKII with a sixteen track headstack, it's almost super reliable. It doesn't hold 10 kHz let alone 16 kHz the way a Studer can, but sonically it's not noticeable and pretty easy to align and maintain. It's transparent sounding, but the machine itself is a little noisy. Ultimately, it's a workhorse.

We also have a Scully 1/2" 4-track that's a nightmare. The transport shreds tape, it's super inconsistent, and the current to the erase head is sometimes really weird.

If the Otari is a Volvo and the Scully is an Austin Healey, a Studer would be Mercedes. Eh?

My cassette deck.